Cause of Death by Laura Dembowski (sci fi books to read .TXT) 📕

Lana’s gone. I’ll call Beth if they give me a phone call, but she’s too busy with her own problems to be there for me all the time. She’s already put her life and marriage in jeopardy once; I can’t really expect her to do it again. Plus, now that there’s no denying I’ve killed someone, she won’t want me around her kids. Even if it was self-defense, even if I’m never charged, I wouldn’t even want me to be around kids.

Beth can’t go to jail either. She won’t do anything to put herself at risk. Framing old Detective Kirkpatrick was one thing, but defending me against any crime, let alone murder, seems an unreasonable request. Our lives have been ruined. There’s no sense spreading the wreckage.

“He was choking me,” I say, looking at the floor.

“We’ll talk about all that down at the station,” the detective says.

“Do I have to go to the station?”

“Yes, but I’ll have the paramedics check you out first.”

She reaches for my neck. I flinch, fearing she may choke me, even though I realize that’s rather unlikely. Her hand barely brushes my neck as she says “You look in pretty bad shape.”

I imagine I do look bad, but if it’s possible, I feel worse. Much worse.

I turn my head when I hear a ruckus. I wince because it hurts so badly, but continue my gawking mission. They are removing Dave’s body. Seeing it, covered with a neon-yellow plastic sheet, finalizes the events of the past hour in my head. Really, it finalizes the events of the past few months, or years, or maybe our entire lives.

“I bet you don’t have many cases like this,” I say to the detective.

“For a little suburban city, you’d be surprised.”

“I never thought things would turn out like this,” I say, and I mean it.

Who wakes up in the morning and thinks their life will turn into a mess of police investigations, accusations, blood, death, and murder? Who plots out their life when they’re in their twenties and thinks, I really want to end up killing my husband and fighting to stay out of jail? If people like that exist, they need some serious help. I just wanted to be happy, like everyone else. Now, many things are up in the air. I know one thing for sure: I need to get out of this mess.

“Most people don’t think the cards will fall as they do. Not even me,” Detective Hutchinson says.

I wonder what that means. I figured she’d have an attitude, since she thinks I killed two people now, but she doesn’t. Maybe she feels bad for me. I feel bad for me, but really, I don’t deserve anyone’s pity or well wishes. Nor do I want them. I want to be left alone. If I go to jail, I’ll have plenty of alone time, and if I don’t, I’ll move on, make friends, fall in love again.

“So you’re just as fucked up as the rest of us, Detective?” I ask, slowly gaining back some of my composure now that Dave’s body is gone.

“I didn’t say that,” she says, not willing to give up much information, snapping back into detective mode. I really want to know more about her. Perhaps once things calm down I can look into her life to entertain myself, now that I’m all alone.

Dave’s blood managed to spill all the way down the stairs and trickle over the side, down to the wood floor below. The carpet is soaked through, and though there’s a chance it could be saved with some professional cleaning, I’d rather have it torn up and replaced. The pool of blood on the hardwood floor, so dark it’s turned black, is blending in with the stain of the wood. That should clean up rather easily. Just some rubber gloves and bleach and good old-fashioned elbow grease.

I’ll want to make the house as presentable as possible, because I already know I want to sell it. I very nearly open my mouth to ask Kate—I feel like we’re on a first-name basis now that she’s given me a glimpse into her life—if I have to disclose the house’s past when I sell, but I fear she may find it too soon for that topic to come up, and end up holding it against me.

I can’t imagine anyone not immediately thinking about selling a house in which someone has been killed. Dave was the only thing stopping me from selling after Lana’s death, and now that he’s out of the way, I only need a realtor. After that, some heavy-duty cleaning, and perhaps a little time to pass so everyone can forget about what has happened in the house in the event that they go online or follow the news. Then I’m out of here.

In the meantime, once I’m cleared to leave the country I’ll just take another vacation, or flee, if the need arises.

We sit in silence. I focus on my breathing as well as Kate’s. She’s taking deep breaths and sighing, with the occasional yawn. I want to look at her and tell her it’s okay to yawn; it’s boring just sitting here, I get it. I wonder what’s going on, why we aren’t leaving. The officers will be traipsing through my house collecting evidence for at least the next twenty-four hours, and I would like that paramedic exam she spoke about earlier.

She’s trying to sit still, trying so hard, I can tell, but it’s difficult for her, as though she’s a little kid, squirming in a doctor’s office seat, waiting to get the appointment over with.

“You ready?” she finally asks.

Am I ready? Really? To leave this house and possibly be locked up and never look back? Of course. Why wouldn’t I be? It’s every upper-middle-class suburban housewife’s dream to be placed in the back of a cop car and driven down to the station to be interrogated again. Only this time, I’ve just confessed to killing my husband.

I’d be pretty suspicious of